


The Road To Ruin

by rydellon



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, M/M, Selkies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-27
Updated: 2019-04-27
Packaged: 2020-02-07 13:05:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18621208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rydellon/pseuds/rydellon
Summary: Kyungsoo is in love with Chanyeol.Chanyeol is in love with Kyungsoo and the sea.now available in chinese (中文)





	The Road To Ruin

**Author's Note:**

  * For [moorauders](https://archiveofourown.org/users/moorauders/gifts).



> _“I am blinded with love, but you can see perfectly.”_
> 
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> 
> written for an (overdue) exchange with moorauders

Kyungsoo is in love with Chanyeol.

 

He’s in love with Chanyeol’s long legs, Chanyeol’s sunny disposition, Chanyeol’s ears, Chanyeol’s lips, and every other little thing anyone could name about him.

 

He loves the way Chanyeol would cuddle up into the covers on their bed, taking them and curling himself up in them, hogging them all to keep himself warm in the night. He loves the way he would come home and Chanyeol would be curled up on the couch, doodling something in the sketchbook that Kyungsoo had bought him. He loves walking into their room at night and seeing the light of the moon glinting off of the silver wedding band placed on his finger.

 

Kyungsoo didn’t love when he came home and he found Chanyeol staring out at the sea, toes digging into the sand on the beach, sea coming up to curl around his ankles like a mother trying to welcome it’s child home.

 

Kyungsoo would always come up behind him, wrapping his arms around Chanyeol’s waist and slowly pulling him away from the call of the ocean, the roaring waves, and the small splashes that signified things in the water.

 

Chanyeol is in love with Kyungsoo.

 

He loves the way Kyungsoo’s smile turns into a heart-shape that crushes his own. He loves the way Kyungsoo fights to not show affection to him but always ends up as the little spoon in the mornings.

 

He loves the way Kyungsoo took a stranger in from the shoreline, crying and alone. He loves with the way Kyungsoo accepted him into his home, going off to work and leaving and trusting Chanyeol to do as he pleases, alone in the house.

 

But he hates it when Kyungsoo pulls him away from the sea, pulls him away from the smell of fresh air and the salt water lapping around his ankles, his feet sinking into the sand and finding their home once again in the shallow water.

 

He would always get arms wrapping around his waist, and Kyungsoo would guide him up, away from the expanse of blue, back to his home.

 

‘His home’.

 

Chanyeol loved Kyungsoo’s house.

 

Small, homely, by the sea. Chanyeol could peak his head out of the window and smell it, the sharp ocean smell that nothing else could imitate. The house held pieces of art that Chanyeol had studied for hours on end, Kyungsoo one day gifting him a set of paints, brushes, and canvases so that he could add his own paintings to the wall.

 

But as much as Chanyeol would love Kyungsoo’s home, he would never be in love with it. Not like he was in love with Kyungsoo, and definitely not like he loved his first home.

 

Maybe even Kyungsoo couldn’t compare to that.

 

—

 

“Chanyeol?” Kyungsoo’s soft voice pulled Chanyeol back to reality, and to the smell of burning eggs, Chanyeol immediately snapping back to attention and grabbing the pan off of the stove, placing the ruined eggs into the compost and the pan back onto the stove so he could try again.

 

“Sorry about that,” Chanyeol dragged his hand along the back of his head sheepishly, pulling at his hair.

 

Kyungsoo chuckled and Chanyeol pulled out another egg from the fridge, Kyungsoo pushing his glasses up his face to continue working on his crossword puzzle. The action shot a familiar warm feeling through Chanyeol’s chest and he sighed, turning back to the stove.

 

“I was thinking,” Kyungsoo said, causing Chanyeol to pause before he cracked his first egg.

 

“Maybe we could go to the pier today? I know you like the gelato place there and I also know you’re running low on some paint colours.”

 

A blatant lie. Chanyeol was only running out of one colour. That colour was blue.

 

Chanyeol perked up at the suggestion, not only excited at the prospect of getting the gelato he liked but also at the prospect of being so close to the sea with Kyungsoo. Kyungsoo never let him go near the sea. This was new.

 

“Definitely!” Chanyeol said, cracking the egg on the pan and pouring it into the sizzling oil.

 

“Great. After breakfast then.”

 

Kyungsoo went back to his crossword and Chanyeol bounced around for the rest of the morning. Maybe Kyungsoo would let him stand on the beach.

 

Kyungsoo would not let Chanyeol stand on the beach.

 

—

 

Their day out was fun.

 

They got the painting supplies first, Chanyeol rushing to the acrylics to pick out another tube of white and blue, and Kyungsoo enjoyed watching his eyes scan over the shelves excitedly as he let him pick out a new brush. (He picked out a small round one and begged Kyungsoo for another, Kyungsoo giving into his whims, and Chanyeol choosing a large flat one. “For the sky,” he had said. It wasn’t for the sky.)

 

Next they had gone to the gelato place, Kyungsoo ordering vanilla bean (“Plain, like you!” Chanyeol had exclaimed excitedly, causing the worker to laugh and Kyungsoo to hit him.) and Chanyeol ordered banana and lemon, saying the flavours blended well together.

 

Then they sat down at a table, the view overlooking the sea and the horizon. Kyungsoo let Chanyeol stare at it for a few minutes before he shook him out of it, grabbing his hand and placing a light kiss on it.

 

“Why do you always stare at the ocean?” he whispered, and Chanyeol smiled softly, gaze flicking back to endless blue before he turned back to Kyungsoo.

 

“The ocean is my first love,” Chanyeol says simply.

 

Kyungsoo doesn’t pry further.

 

—

 

The day Chanyeol finds it was otherwise normal.

 

He had been on land for more than a year and a half, and had been staying with Kyungsoo for the entirety of that time, waking up in his warm embrace and staring wistfully out the window at the ocean.

 

Today Kyungsoo was at work and Chanyeol had gone out to the rocks by the shoreline to complete his most recent painting.

 

That’s when he found it.

 

It was airtight, nestled in-between two rocks and something Chanyeol definitely would not have noticed if it was high tide.

 

Chanyeol kept walking, straight past it, vowing to come back to it when he dropped the finished painting off, but something stopped him from walking back even when the house was in sight, only around 30 meters away.

 

He only paused for a second more before he gingerly placed his painting materials down, the tool box that housed his paints and brushes and materials being set on the grassy path beside the rocks before Chanyeol scrambled for the box, pulling it up and undoing the clasps on it, opening the lid to be graced with the delicate sight of something he hadn’t seen in a very long time.

 

His coat.

 

He pulled it out, gingerly carding his hands through the soft fur, sighing as his hands made contact with the once-familiar softness.

 

He shot another glance at the house, then one at his painting gear, than one at the ocean. He could hear it calling for him, yelling at him to come back to it, back to where he belongs, to swim, get his fur wet, and maybe just find his family again.

 

He set the coat down gingerly and picked up his canvas, turning it over and grabbing black paint and a small brush.

 

When he was done he set the painting down again, gingerly washing his brush and placing everything back where it was supposed to be, glancing back at the house one more time and almost longing to see Kyungsoo one more time before he had left, taste his lips once more.

 

Chanyeol threw his coat on and burrowed into it, throwing himself into the water and swimming away at a fast pace, not letting any thoughts of Kyungsoo stop him from doing what he had wanted for over a year, to return to his first love, his first home, the ocean.

 

Nobody saw the seal swimming away, skirting around fishing vessels to get into the wide, open ocean, thoughts racing through his head for seconds at a time before he stopped them, continuing his journey away from land to find what he had lost in this very ocean.

 

—

 

Kyungsoo got home to an empty house.

 

“Chanyeol?” He had called, glancing out of the window at the sea and seeing nothing there except for the sand and the aforementioned body of water.

 

And a glint of silver.

 

Fuck.

 

Kyungsoo sprinted out the door, running to the rocks at a fast pace, but already knowing what he was going to see, maybe naïvely thinking he could stop it.

 

When he got there he saw the open box and abandoned painting and walked back towards the house to make dinner.

 

Something made him slow down and turn back, gingerly grabbing the box, painting materials and canvas in his hands, walking slowly back to the house.

 

He placed the painting materials down inside the door but brought the painting with him to the couch, turning it over in his hands.

 

It was a painting of their—his house, and Chanyeol had painted himself and Kyungsoo outside of it, holding hands. He could see the beginnings of water creeping up on the shoreline and he felt like he could feel Chanyeol’s hand in his, the long, bony fingers entwining with his smaller, stubbier fingers. Warm sunsets. The smell of salt and french fries from the local diner.

 

Kyungsoo turned the canvas over to search for Chanyeol’s signature but was instead greeted with writing in black paint. He sighed, tracing his fingers over the lettering.

 

A tear ran down his cheek.

 

The letter professed Chanyeol’s  love, love for Kyungsoo, their life, how long they’d spent together, but also love for the ocean, how he couldn’t stay away, how he was sorry he had to go but there was no other way.

 

Before Kyungsoo knew he was sobbing.

 

He dropped the painting on the ground, memories of him and Chanyeol flying through his brain, the painted script permanently burned onto the back of his eyelids.

 

He tried to wipe the tears away but they just kept coming, the same salty water that Chanyeol couldn’t stay away from trailing down his cheeks in waves that just wouldn’t quit.

 

Kyungsoo watched the sea from that day on, eyes straining to see that flash of gray fur that he longed for, yearning for Chanyeol to come back to him.

 

Chanyeol never did.

 

He should never have taken that stupid coat in the first place.

**Author's Note:**

> sorry this took so damn long.
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> [now available in chinese (中文)](https://t.co/mYVpvs7V1F?amp=1)
> 
> [ **my cc** ](https://curiouscat.me/ry_dellon)
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> [ **my twt** ](https://twitter.com/sunjaes)


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